


Conquest of Spaces

by andnowforyaya



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Fluff, Gen, Hurt Stiles, Implied Torture, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Protective Derek, The Alpha Pack, Vampires, Witches, well maybe a little bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:05:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You?" Pierre asks incredulously. "A mere human?"</p><p>"Mere?" Stiles repeats, spreading his arms and looking down at himself. This time Derek really does chuckle, and Stiles grins at the noise. "My dad is still inside," he tells Derek. "So can we make this fast?"</p><p>In which Stiles has <em>so got this</em> and Derek realizes something important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conquest of Spaces

It starts, of course, with the bite. With Scott writhing in the dead leaves of the forest floor, the first full moon flashing silver like a knife between the clouds, Stiles a bundle of energy and fresh knowledge, a pile of heavy chains in his arms and Scott afraid of the power behind his spasming claws.

"I got it," Stiles assures his friend, and yeah, that's where it starts.

.

There's also the Sheriff, a week before the anniversary of his wife's death, his son drifting from him, a haunted look in his eyes whenever he gets a chance to sit down with him for a meal. He doesn't know where Stiles goes off to in the night, doesn't know why he starts turning up at crime scenes, with more information sometimes than even he has. He doesn't know what to do, where to turn, thinks, _she would have known what to do, what went wrong._

So he finds the bottle of whiskey he keeps above the cabinets in the kitchen, usually out of sight and reach, and he's tilting the glass when his son finds him, lays a steady hand on his own trembling one, says, "I got it," and pours him his next shot.

It burns down his throat.

.

Derek doesn't know what comes over him, leaving such a important part of the plan to a human, of all beings (humans are weak, and vengeful, and dangerous in their frailty; he learned the hard way), but Deaton says, "Trust," and Derek has no betas to spare.

Deaton gives Stiles the pouch of mountain ash and instructs, "Believe," pure and simple.

Stiles' eyes are wide and bright. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, and Derek follows the movement. He is outwardly nervous but Stiles' heart is steadily thumping in his chest, and he grins finally, giving the small pouch a skeptical look. "I got it," he assures them all, behind glinting teeth.

.

They draw the alpha pack - what's left of them, anyway - to the abandoned compound where there was once a rave, concrete rising above them on all sides as Derek stares down at Kali and one of the twins (he can never tell which, though he supposes now that he's just the one who is not dead) from the second level, like looking down into pit. His betas fan out around the circumference, and Derek can't help the swell of pride that comes with this final confrontation.

Their first real outside threat, and the pack had come together, finally.

It had been Stiles, actually, to devise the plan, inspired by the latest horror film in theaters. "Divide and conquer," he had announced to the group, with hard eyes and a wicked grin. Derek had let him take charge, felt an odd thrill at allowing a human command over his pack. It made his blood sing.

And it paid off.

"The way I see it," he tells the wolves in the pit, "you have two choices." Derek bares his teeth. "Your first is that you continue to fight, and you die horrible deaths. Your second is that you leave Beacon Hills with your lives, and you never come back, and you tell every wolf you come across that this territory is Claimed."

"Yeah," Stiles chimes in from Derek's left, a few paces away. He has his baseball bat against one shoulder. The one he had Deaton carve runes into for strength and protection, the one Stiles himself painstakingly varnished in wolfsbane ash. "This town ain't big enough for the both of us. Or for two packs. Or, you know, for anything remotely supernatural because we've got loads of supernatural shit we have to deal with, anyway--"

"Stiles," Derek interrupts, voice rough.

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I got it." He mimes zipping his lips shut.

Wisely, the remaining alphas decide on the second option, and skip town, tails between their legs.

.

The witches are next, interested in Beacon Hills because of the sudden spike of magical activity. Derek blames Deaton. They are a group of four young women who take classes at the local community college, and Stiles is drawn to them like a moth to the flame.

"It's too dangerous," Derek tells him though gritted teeth.

Stiles exhales, frustrated. "Who are you, my Dad?"

And Stiles' dad says, "No, but I agree with him."

"Oh, my god," Stiles protests.

"Stiles," his father warns him with an authoritative stare. Derek tries to mimic that stare.

Stiles' body is a hard line of resentment, his lips pressed tightly together. He says, "Fine, okay, I got it!" and stomps off to his room petulant and every ounce the teenager that he is.

.

Which of course means he goes to the witches anyway, and the witches love him so much that they want him for themselves, which is how Derek bursts into the tiny campus bookstore after hours with Scott and Isaac and Boyd and Lydia to find Stiles trapped inside a pentagram, candles burning at each point, the witches seated around him with their hands joined together, glaring at the intrusion.

"Oh, thank god," Stiles breathes. Belatedly, Derek realizes Stiles is in nothing more than his boxers, sweat trickling down his neck and trailing towards the waistband there. It smells like blood and wax and sex, and Derek has to shake his head to clear his thoughts, because that is when the witches attack, spells leaping from their fingertips, intending to maim. He dodges, and Lydia steps up, throws out her immunity to all things supernatural around them like a shield.

"What do I do?" he growls at Stiles while Lydia and the others keep the witches occupied.

"Break the pentagram! I can't do it from in here." Stiles gulps, sweat teasing down the line of his throat. Derek hastily scrubs his boot through the black lines of the pentagram, breaking it, and Stiles shudders, just as he hears Isaac shout his name in warning.

"Got it!" Stiles shouts back, like they're in the middle of a lacrosse game claiming a fly ball. He rocks up to standing while scooping his fingers through the ash of the ruined pentagram, quickly bringing the stuff up to his lips and blowing it in a spray over Derek's shoulder.

Derek turns, watching as though in slow-motion. The ash separates and catches fire, little sparks quickly igniting and burning out as the ash absorbs the spell. He turns back to Stiles, bewildered. Stiles has a cocky grin in his face.

"At least I learned some neat tricks," he says with a shrug.

The witches leave town, too, though reluctantly, and only after Stiles promises to write.

"What did they even want with you?" Scott asks him after the fact, as they watch the SUV of women pull away from the curb.

"Dude," Stiles says. "I think they were trying to turn me into a girl?"

Lydia shrieks in laughter.

Derek pictures it, and grows warm at the thought.

.

The clan is like the alpha pack, only about twenty times worse and three times as blood thirsty - literally.

The Sheriff has to get involved. "There are too many bodies," he tells Derek. "I'll try to frame them as serial murders, but you need to be more careful."

He makes the mistake of telling Stiles to stay out of this one. He knows it's a mistake as soon as the words leave his mouth, as Stiles' eyes grow stony like he's never seen him, face pale save for two angry red spots high on his cheeks.

"Why?" he demands, the rest of the pack looking studiously into their laps to avoid eye contact.

"It's too dangerous," Derek attempts, but Stiles interjects angrily.

"Like the kanima? Like the alpha pack? Please." He scoffs.

"No. It's not that, Stiles. This is different--"

"I got it," Stiles spits. "Leave the weak human out of it. God only knows how many times I've had to save your furry asses," he grouses, folding his arms over his stomach where he's sitting on the couch next to Isaac.

"Your dad is worried," Derek explains, instantly regretting his choice of words. It's like the oceans fall out of Stiles' world, his eyes suddenly blank and unreadable.

Silence, and then a soft, "Oh."

Stiles goes out to his car and nobody stops him. They all listen to the sputter of the engine and then the crunch of the tires a Stiles pulls away from Derek's house.

He hates playing the Dad Card for the instant change and guilt-ridden funk that plagues Stiles for the next few days after, but at least this way he'll be safe.

He hopes.

.

Of course, when has hope ever done good for Derek, as Stiles shows up anyway, coincidentally out at dinner with his father at the diner where Derek had planned to summit with the leader of the clan. They're out back, near the dumpsters, when he sees Stiles in his red hoodie through the screen door, on his way to the restrooms.

He tries desperately to communicate with just his eyes and eyebrows that Stiles should really stay inside and not come out, which is of course exactly what Stiles does, screen door screeching as he takes the few steps to Derek's side. Then he turns and sees the vampire.

Aesthetically, Pierre (and why wouldn't Beacon Hills attract French vampires from Canada?) is a good looking, centuries-old young man. Eternally in his 30s unless he steps into the sun anytime in the future, with dark hair and pale skin and broad shoulders. He breathes in and licks his lips, and the look he sends Stiles is lecherous.

"You brought an offering, Hale?" Pierre purrs. "And one so young and." He hums. "Virginal."

The blush that blooms suddenly over Stiles' skin makes Derek's heart stammer. "Yeah, no," Stiles squeaks. "And not that it's any of your business, but I have done loads of other stuff, okay?"

Derek tries not to think of the other stuff. Pierre smirks.

"If you're not here as an offering in return for our leaving, then why are you here?"

Stiles glances at Derek as though taking his measure. He nods, and Derek finds himself nodding back. Stiles licks his lips. "To, ah, kill you?"

Pierre laughs. Stiles laughs, too. Derek finds himself chuckling, but watching Pierre intently for any sudden movement.

"You?" Pierre asks incredulously. "A mere human?"

"Mere?" Stiles repeats, spreading his arms and looking down at himself. This time Derek really does chuckle, and Stiles grins at the noise. "My dad is still inside," he tells Derek. "So can we make this fast?"

And Pierre doesn't seem to take too kindly to being ignored, because that is when he launches himself at the pair, arms outstretched and hands like claws. Derek catches the shine of fangs before he's stepping in front of Stiles and smoothly intercepting, using the vampire's momentum to send them both tumbling to the cement floor of the alley. From there it is a blur of limbs and teeth and claws, each fighting for dominance and leverage.

He gets the upper hand when Stiles shouts, "Silver!" and flings something, a harmless rock, at the two wrestling on the ground. The vampire realizes the feint too late, and Derek has it in a lock while he's on his back, and Stiles is there, and Derek's roaring, "Stilinski!"

Stiles takes something out of the pocket of his hoodie and flips his wrist and it's an _honest-to-god_ stake, and Derek can't even care right now how Stiles came prepared for a vampire fight when he was expressly told not to, because Pierre is strong and his grip is slipping, but Stiles grunts, "I got it," and drives the stake between Pierre's ribs, and Pierre explodes into a pile of dust all down Derek's front.

Derek coughs and sends a cloud of ash in Stiles' direction. Stiles scrubs a hand down his face, breath evening, while Derek eyes the stake in his hands suspiciously.

Before he can address it, though, Stiles is offering his hand and musing aloud, "You know we were just about to split dessert? I bet you like chocolate cake, huh?"

He's led into the diner through the screen door, Stiles' fingers warm in his.

.

Kali comes back, and this time it's personal. She has no interest whatsoever in the territory, just in revenge, leaves dead cats on Derek's doorstep like the mafia.

Derek insists that no one go about town alone, not after Isaac is deposited in the backyard, body littered with so many injuries it takes him two whole days to heal.

They meet after school for a head count and a report, and it's all manageable until one day Stiles doesn't show up.

"He told me he was partnering with you!" Scott accuses Isaac.

"He told me he was with you!" Isaac shouts right back.

Some foreign rage makes itself known in Derek's bones. If Kali has taken him, done anything at all - Derek can't be held responsible for his actions.

Their fears are confirmed when Derek's phone buzzes with an unknown number.

 _come to the compound,_ the text reads. _your human is waiting._

Derek and Lydia drive them, and when they reach the compound there is a brief argument about whether or not Lydia should even be here, but Lydia can be even more stubborn than Stiles at times, so she glues herself to Scott's side and promises to hide if anything even hints is going to happen.

In the compound it is silent, but Derek knows where to go, and they all follow him to the pit, only this time they are the ones inside it.

And there, in the center, is Stiles. Cross-legged on the concrete, hands bound behind him. Kali stands next to him, a figure cut in black, a long chain in her hand. Derek traces the chain to a leather collar around Stiles' neck, the skin around it rubbed raw and red.

Almost instinctively his claws extend and he bares his teeth, eyes flashing red, but Kali gives a warning tug on the chain, aggravating the skin and putting pressure on Stiles' throat, and he whimpers. Derek stills.

"Ooh," Kali croons, smirking. She places a heeled boot on Stiles' thigh, leaning slightly. Stiles sucks in through his teeth. He has a nasty bruise coloring his cheekbone and eye on his left side, and his nose has been bleeding. There's blood, too, on his shirt at his shoulder and on his chest, but he glares just as ferociously at Kali as expected, a small relief.

"I learned something about your pack after I left," Kali says, like she hadn't been forced to leave. "Get the human boy, and they all come running." She tugs again on the leash, and this time Stiles yells through clenched teeth.

Derek inches forward, can sense the rest of the pack at his back, half-shifted like he is.

"Ah ah," Kali chides, wagging a finger at them. "Don't make a move or I'll snap his neck."

Derek's heart is pounding in his ears; he's sure Kali can hear it. "What do you want?" he forces out.

Kali smiles. "To see your face when I rip apart your pack. To destroy you, inside and out, like you did me. I thought I would have to pick apart each of your betas, one by one, but that's not it, is it?" She looks between Derek and Stiles curiously, smile growing wider. Then she pulls out a hand gun. "Do you think wolfsbane bullets hurt humans the same as regular ones?" she's asking, pointing the barrel at Stiles, and then she's pulling the trigger.

Derek's vision is red with rage. He hunts, and Kali is prey. He lashes out; she dodges. They continue this dance until Derek's claws are at Kali's neck and she says, "Yes, that's the face I wanted to see," before Derek rips her throat to shreds, and Stiles is a rag doll on the unforgiving concrete floor.

Derek gingerly unclasps the leather around Stiles' neck and cups a hand around the inflamed skin, though it is slippery with blood. Stiles' heartbeat is sluggish and his eyes are rolling back into his head, and he is slack in Derek's arms. Derek tries to leach away his pain, but he can't; there is too much of it. He's muttering nonsense and vaguely aware of Boyd calling for an ambulance, and hands grasping at him to move, to act, and Scott saying, "He's losing too much blood, Derek! We need to go, now!"

"I got you," he realizes he is murmuring to Stiles, who closes his eyes in Derek's arms. "Hold on, Stiles. I got you."

.

Stiles' eyes don't open again until the next full moon a few days later, and Derek is a thin shell of skin stretched tight over an impossible amount of energy. He snaps at the nurses who try to tell him to leave, nearly revealing his fangs, until finally Melissa gets the message and takes over the duties surrounding Stiles herself, and Derek can fidget in the chair or by the window in peace.

The bullet entered his shoulder at an angle. They could remove it, but Stiles would experience stiffness in that shoulder likely his whole life, regardless of how well it healed. Derek promised himself that he would be there to take away the pain whenever Stiles needed.

Stiles wakes in slow increments, but Derek is there from the moment he senses it happening, leaning forward in the chair by the hospital bed, forgetting to breathe. His heartbeat picks up, and then his breath. He makes a small noise of discontent and then wrinkles his nose, and then his fingers jerk, phantom grasping, and Derek wants desperately to slot his palm against Stiles', to bring their hands up against his own cheek, but then Stiles' eyelids are fluttering, and finally his eyes are open, and Derek exhales after an eternity, watching as Stiles' honey-gold eyes gain awareness.

"Hey there, Sourwolf," is what Stiles mumbles first, and Derek can't help it. Relief bubbles out of him in the form of laughter, and he ducks his head until he's pressed his forehead against the sheets, happiness threatening to betray him. A pressure against his scalp that he leans into, closes his eyes. Stiles carding his fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry I went off on my own. I swear I wasn't looking for her. I shouldn't have done that," is what Stiles says next, sadness tinting his words. "I just needed--"

Derek draws himself up abruptly, surprised, protests on his tongue. "Don't," he insists. "Don't even think about it. You have nothing to apologize for."

"Then I'm sorry I couldn't participate in the beat down," Stiles amends, giving a lopsided shrug. Derek watches the sweep of his lashes against his cheek, his pink tongue dart out to wet his lips, and he feels resolve settle his thoughts. A confession forms on his tongue. "I," he manages, before Stiles shushes him with a long finger against the seam of his lips.

His eyes are bright and warm.

"I got it," Stiles tells him, and that bubble of relief and happiness inside Derek swells so quickly he's afraid he's going to burst, but all Stiles does is tap his finger against his own lips, and yeah, Derek presses his lips there, chaste and sweet and perfect.

.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [here](http://paperkrane.tumblr.com/) and [here](http://andnowforyaya.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Title from Woodkid's _Conquest of Spaces_.


End file.
